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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22870213">Half a man enough</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadia_Hernandez/pseuds/Nadia_Hernandez'>Nadia_Hernandez</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Charmed (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Breakfast, Cooking, Developing Relationship, Drama &amp; Romance, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Melancholy, Psychological Drama, Romance, Sad, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Emotional Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:15:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,104</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22870213</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadia_Hernandez/pseuds/Nadia_Hernandez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Half a man may be enough for her, but is she what he needs?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Greenwood/Abigael Jameson-Caine, Harry Greenwood/Macy Vaughn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Half a man enough</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one was fun to write. I'm really coming around to Abigael as a character--I like how absolutely awful and yet likable and believable she is at the same time.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Abigael Jameson-Caine is a terrible person. Harry knows this and, after all, it’s not as if she makes any pretense about it. Dishonesty, although it is one of her many less than endearing traits, taints neither her self perception nor the way in which she presents herself to him or the world at large. She is the self-proclaimed Overlord of the Demonic Realm, a title she usurped from a weak brother, and acts the part with an imperious mien and capricious spite. To do anything else would invite revolution from her fractious subjects and, in the case of those belonging to the Malignant tribe, consumption. She is half witch, after all, and her flesh is therefore a delicacy to them.</p><p>There are times, however, when she does not seem to be a bad sort in spite of her evil nature. Moments that make the humanity within her glow in his eyes. The way she seeks warmth in bed is charming, first of all. She cuddles down against his body as the little spoon and, more often, wraps her arms tight around him to envelope him as the big spoon. Taken by itself he knows that this does not make her any less reptilian--any snake will sun itself on a convenient rock. Still, when she snores softly beside him it is easier to forget her callous disregard for the lives of friend and foe alike and accept her as the beautiful if sharp tongued woman she appears to be.</p><p>Other times make it even more difficult to remember that she, at best, a shaky ally to his charges cum family the Charmed Ones. One cold morning not long after they took up together, while he stood over a smoking pan to make the English fry up they both favored when the weather grew inclement, she slid up behind him to nestle her head against his shoulder and gently set a tea cup beside his work station on the counter.</p><p>He took a sip and smiled. “Heavy cream and no sugar… thank you. That’s just how I like it.”</p><p>“Of course,” she said. “You told me, after all, not long after we met. I think sharing tea preferences is the English equivalent of dogs sniffing one another.”</p><p>“It is, and I did.” He turns the rasher of bacon, worries at their bangers a little to make sure they do not stick and adjusts the heat down towards a simmer. “I didn’t expect you to remember, though.”</p><p>“I’m not a monster,” she said, and then purses her lips. “Well, I am, but that doesn’t make me an arsehole. You’re important to me, Harry, and that means the things you like are important to me as well.”</p><p>He doesn’t quite know how to respond to this so he keeps cooking and enjoys the soft pressure of her body against his back, how her breathing and heartbeat meld with his. She might be as deadly a serpent as the crait or taipan--Mel reminds him of this at least hourly--but on this cold morning she is a warm, present and all too human woman taking her morning meal with him.</p><p>This is why he feels so wracked with guilt when he admits to himself on some deep, subtle level that it is Macy Vaughn who retains ownership over much real estate in his soul. It’s not as if he would call out her name during an urgent moment (nor would he survive doing so, he imagines) nor even something so vulgar as imagining her while he is with Abigael. She is the kind of woman who demands all a man’s attention and even as a selfish lover--what demon isn’t--cannot be denied.</p><p>There is a hesitancy, though. He holds back with Abigael when they talk in ways he has never done with Macy. They have never shared any intimacy beyond the physical; he suspects they never will. It would be easy to make excuses for this, to say that Abigael cannot be trusted, but he knows that it is more. He does not want to share the inner most aspects of his being with her, that he is afraid only half a man can never suffice in a whole man’s place. A White Lighter can guide, heal and even protect to a limited degree but he will never be a hero. </p><p>That’s why he cannot pursue Macy. There is a practical reason too, of course. They are at war, dammit, and what’s more seem to be on the losing side. Distraction is not advisable. This hasn’t stopped Maggie from developing a deep friendship with Jordan, though, or Macy’s awkward fling with Julian. It hasn’t stopped his own… whatever this is… with Abigael. To decry distraction rings false with so much of it clamoring around them.</p><p>At the end of all things he knows it is because he does feel like half a man, a slave with half his soul bound to the dead Elders and the other half trapped inside a mayonnaise jar. He cannot pursue a fuller relationship with Macy because he is not a full man and she deserves more than he can give her. It is that simple. </p><p>Why, then, can half a man carry on with Abigael? It is as simple as it is contemptible. She is a terrible person, after all, and Harry finds most of the time that he doesn’t really like her very much. </p><p>He winces when he thinks it, especially in those rare moments she is kind or vulnerable. When she seems so human that her vaunted status as a demon overlord might as well be nothing more than a glowing line on her LinkedIn page he feels like a monster in his own right, but in other moments when she is dismissive of human suffering or shrugs off dead witches as the price of doing business he knows that she is, indeed, a monster.</p><p>She calls to him from the foyer beside her staircase. “Harry? It’s late and I’ve had a long day. I think I’m going to go ahead and retire early. Perhaps you can keep me company if you hurry up before I fall totally asleep.” He can hear the wink in her voice, the leer, and he reacts to it without hesitation.</p><p>So she is a monster, or at least half one, and he is half a man. He goes to her anyway in spite of the evil she has done and will continue to do with no remorse. Perhaps, he says to himself as they come together, they deserve each other after all.</p>
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